In which nothing at all is Afoot
by Naissus
Summary: Something begins to be Afoot when 'James' squirms into her touch and really rough and low and gentle he groans, "Sirius?" - In which something very very embarrassing happens, and then Lily and Remus have a very very awkward conversation. SBRL, JPLE


**Sorry for disappearing for a while there. This story was born out of my sudden love for this friendship. Normally I write them much closer than I make them sound here, but there you go.**

**So here it is: a story in which something very very embarrassing happens the morning after the night before, and then Lily and Remus are forced to talk about it afterwards. Do I even need to say, SBRL+JPLE? (I know I just made it sound like Remus/Lily, but it's not, promise. I wouldn't do that to you.)**

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Lily gently awakens with morning light spilling into the room and the man she loves beside her and for once peace and quiet. And absolutely nothing is Afoot.

She mumbles something as she wakes and throws her arm over James's chest.

Oh, it's so nice to muzzily snuggle into his armpit and prod him gently in the neck, and he twitches away in his sleep, which is cute although she didn't actually realise until just now that James is ticklish _there_. She grins into his side, clumsily kissing the fabric, and he twitches again, and sighs. Very drowsy and content, Lily walks her fingers down his chest and then down his stomach, to shudders and little mm's and more twitching and then she pushes her fingers against- and then he actually gasps, which she barely ever surprises him enough to get him to do.

Something begins to be Afoot when James wrinkles his nose in his sleep and squirms into her touch and really rough and low and gentle he groans, _Sirius._

Lily shrieks, and then they both open their eyes, and then they both shriek again.

From his point of view, he's woken from a very comfortable sleep by a scream from someone next to him who sounds a lot like Lily but can't be because he's in bed and Sirius is awake and he's starti GOD NO.

So Remus's eyes fly open in panic, meet hers, and he shrieks too; Lily snatches her hand back as if he had burst into flames and they fly apart.

The real fucking James flings open the door and gapes. Remus stares at him, completely at a loss for words but at least having the common decency to turn an unhealthy colour and open his mouth like a fish, and on the other side of the bed, Lily goes puce with rage.

"Oh!" cries James. "You're awake, then. I told you."

"No, I told you- oh, it was all James's fault really, you guys" observes Sirius very cheerfully, appearing behind James in a large chef's hat. Lily and Remus see him and both scream again.

Breakfast, it's safe to say, is fairly awkward.

"Lil, love" simpers Sirius.

"I have a _y_ at the end of my name" she sniffs, albeit quietly. "And I like it."

"_Lil_," he says winsomely. "Prongs had passed out in the chair, and you had passed out in the bed, my bed, may I add- and I wasn't going to carry Moony up the fucking stairs, you're a fat bastard, don't give me that look. It was just easier, Lily, look, I didn't know you two would wake up before me and get down to it _that bloody quickly_- hahaahahahhaaha."

She stares at him and grips her breakfast knife.

"Lil, it was the sensible solution at the time. I'm sorry! Come on, Lily. C'mon."

Sirius looks insanely cheerful in the face of a woman scorned – additionally brandishing a breakfast knife – so Remus pales for him.

"Look, I gave you two _my_ bed!"

"And forgot to inform us of that" grinds out Lily.

"You were both asleep! Dreaming of me, you know, criminal to wake you" grins Sirius, jostling Remus playfully. Lily catches his eye and heroically manages to not choke on her cornflakes.

"But you didn't, you know, nothing, well-" cuts in James, at the perfect time, and looking vaguely amused rather than jealous or territorial, which he really should be looking, she thinks angrily. He eyes Remus, who cringes, and then James winks at him, and Sirius snorts and Remus says nothing and Lily lays her forehead on the table and contemplates tears.

It all only gets worse when Sirius squeezes Remus's shoulder as he gets up – _casually_ – and Lily and Remus both almost stab themselves in the face with their forks. James looks at Lily a bit oddly.

"Er" says Remus, when James and Sirius gallop off to find Peter, or rather, to ignore Peter and fail to talk coherently to his leggy, beautiful cousin Grace.

"Er" agrees Lily, staring at her eggs.

"Let's never mention this" murmurs Remus.

"Yes." She nods emphatically. "Yes. Super. Top notch."

"Erm. I'm, going to, er- plate."

"Yes" she concurs. "Plate. Good, good er, thing, yes, plate." Remus very urgently leaps from the table and rams the plate into the sink.

"So, ah, are you and- well, I kind of, guessed- didn't really want to tell you I- well, you know, like- er." She gets it out, all twenty-four eloquent syllables, and that's the main thing.

Remus stares at her.

Lily clears her throat.

"Er" says Remus, turning a lovely shade of scarlet that would fascinate any artist.

"Well?"

"Er" says Remus in a very high, breezy voice, sitting down heavily. "Do we really have to go into the, er, logistics?"

"Remus Lupin aka Moony, werewolf, the facts are that we were in bed together and I thought you were my husband and then we began to do intimate things when you moaned my husband's best male friend's name. Do you really think we have any secrets anymore?"

"Nope" he admits in the exact same tone. "Hmm. Let's start with this. Don't tell James." That was a bit more human.

"Why not?" she asks, shocked. Whatever reaction she was expecting, it wasn't that.

"What? Don't tell him. Oh, God" he cringes again. "Shit. This is so embarrassing. Shit."

"Really? Really _really_? Wonder what that's like." Remus looks blank, or perhaps he has just gone into autopilot.

Lily winks lewdly across the table as if to demonstrate.

"Right." Remus says.

"Yes," agrees Lily.

"Ah."

"Indeed. Remus, I'm honestly sorry if you're now so uncomfortable you can't bear to look at me because I t-"

"How about this," he says, feeling frantic. "There was no touching. None, no, no touching. Much less any of the aforementioned intimate nature."

"No" she echoes. "No touching."

"And in return, there was also no- moaning."

"Definitely none" she says.

There is a brief silence.

Lily scoots her chair closer to him in a kind of conspiratorial manner.

Remus wants to run away but can't remember how.

"But there was, you know, some of the- erm, second one, and I was just wondering-"

"No wondering."

"Well- maybe a little. Erm, so is there, you know, a kind of unspoken, type- thing- with er, you and- and you four just kind of- know? And it's just accepted- an accepted fact? And I've just been really dim? That's what it is. Isn't it? Or is that not what- the." The only reason she's been allowed to continue like that and then trail off is because Remus is possibly suffering from post-traumatic stress and it's made him temporarily forget how to talk as well as walk.

"The only reason you've been allowed to continue like that and then trail off is because I temporarily forgot how to talk," he informs her breezily.

"But there was some- of the moaning. Wasn't there" she persists.

"I don't think you understand how this game fundamentally works," he says. "Look, just leave it. There are some boundaries that- best left."

"Are you really going to make me repeat what's just happened to illustrate the fact that we now have no boundaries?"

Remus is defeated by his hasty "Nooooo no no. No.", and takes a breath.

She raises an eyebrow at his silence and opens her mouth to reiterate the facts again.

"Er," he interupts desperately. "Sirius and I kind of- hmm. Stuff. And haven't told James because- yeah. Don't tell James."

And that, is it. Lily is not done prying.

"Why?"

"It will ruin it" he whispers solemnly. And there is a pause.

"I won't tell him."

"Thank you."

"Sorry for, er, waking you up in- that way."

"Yes. I know. I like being woken up in that way, just- er. Are we going to become like, you know, girly type buddies and talk about our, er, private lives?"

"Erm, well, the other day James-"

"NO" yells Remus, banging his knee in his desperation to be rid of the horrible, horrible chair. "No, no no. No. Is the answer to that, er, question; no. No, not, no. No. No talking. No touching, no moaning, no talking."

"Ah, okay. Exactly." Lily nods a lot. "I get the game now, see."

"Good."

"Yes."

"I know."

"We'll just stick to the game. Of repression. Sorted."

"Good" he says again. "Good, good, none of that, good."

"Okay."

"And you obviously know nothing, because none of- all of that- yes. Right?"

She agrees, and then changes her mind. She will keep schtum, so long as Sirius respects the fourth letter of her name.

Remus groans for the second time: more a man defeated than one pleasured, this time. "How am I supposed to get him to do that? He just does it to annoy you. Just stop reacting. I can't control him, honestly I can't, it's still freaking _Sirius_ we're dealing with."

"You probably can" she muses, picking at James's toast nonchalantly. "Just withhold sexual favours for a while."

"Let's just make this very perfectly clear" he says after a pause. "If we are going to continue the pretence to- to them, of not being scarred for life by one another, you are going to have to never say those two words again in our already now rocky friendship." They both laugh nervously.

"I won't tell James" she promises, suddenly serious, and Remus is amazingly and overwhelmingly grateful, even so as to go to put his arm around her shoulders (that's what humans to do show affection, right?) and then at the last minute they both are suddenly very very loud and high-pitched and have Places to Be, right now, can't wait, got to dash.

Remus thinks privately to himself that perhaps a policy of not getting drunk on whatever strangely coloured charmed shots Sirius and James thrust his way and therefore always, always knowing he's falling asleep in his own bed is probably for the best.

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**Sorry for not updating anything for ages and ages. I'll upload my other Lily story soon (a bit darker than this because it's about Snape loving Lily and doesn't actually even feature Sirius or Remus, frighteningly, what is the matter with me?) and then have some more nice SBRL things to polish after I've got that out of my system.**

**Review? :)**


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